Corruption
by Spasmodic dust bunny
Summary: The four founders have started Hogwarts together, but not everything has gone so well. SalazarRowena, GodricHelga. Rated for violence.


**A/N Right.**** I started out wanting to write a Founder's fic, and I wanted it to be Salazar/Rowena and Godric/Helga. And then this came out. It's quite strange, actually. It starts out light and fluffy, and then steadily turns darker. It ended up being the most morbid thing I've written. It's in two parts. They could be posted as chapters, but it's not really a chapter thing. So that's my reasoning. Go me. **

**Disclaimer; Nothing in here is mine. Except, perhaps, the plot. But the characters are Jo's. **

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**Part One**

There was, Rowena decided, a speck of dust on the banister of the staircase. Reaching forward, she wiped it off the mahogany surface, inwardly chiding herself for being so perfectionist. The castle was as ready as it would ever be for the eighty-six students arriving soon, and there was nothing she could do in the last few days that the four of them hadn't already done in the past three years.

With this in mind, Rowena turned around and started back down the stairs, with the intention of finding Godric and asking him just what he had done with those Transfiguration textbooks.

When she finally found Godric, he was deep in conversation with Helga regarding passwords to common rooms.

"Well, yes, but I still don't see why it must be so complicated. I mean, you would think they would know who was in their house by - Rowena!" Helga caught sight of her, and gestured for her to join them. "Now, come tell Godric how unnecessary it would be to have a portrait guarding the entrance to all our common rooms."

Rowena felt herself beginning to panic. "We still haven't finished with the common rooms? But we only have -"

"Calm down," interrupted Godric. "Of course we've finished, I'm just trying to convince Helga that she should follow my system of having a portrait guarding the entrance."

"And I," said Helga, "was reminding him how we all agreed that the common rooms were to be made individually."

"I'm inclined to agree with you there. Sorry Godric, we'll stick with our own methods and leave the portraits to you Gryffindors."

At this, Godric sighed. "Very well, I see it's useless to convince either of you. I'll just go see if Salazar will listen to reason then." And with that he left.

Helga snorted. "Yes, good luck with that. Because we all know how often Salazar decides to change his plan and go along with yours instead."

Godric had apparently not had much success with Salazar either, and was now walking about the grounds by himself, several hours later. _He's sulking_ Rowena thought, watching him from a window. Something must have happened with Salazar. They must have had an argument.

Almost as if on cue, she saw Helga hurry out of the castle. _She's gone to talk to him. She always knows what to say to calm him. _At these thoughts she felt a sharp pang run through her, but she wasn't quite sure what it was.

Ignoring this, she stood up purposefully and strode towards the staircase. If there had been an argument then Salazar would be upset too. She couldn't comfort him, but at least she could talk.

The door creaked open. A breeze hit Rowena as it did so, but it was a summertime breeze and therefore welcomed. She stepped through the doorway, out into the open air. It wasn't really nighttime yet, more dusk, but there were a few stars scattered in the sky that she could see quite clearly from her view from the Astronomy Tower.

She took a few steps further in and saw that she had been right. Sitting on the stone floor, gazing up at the sky was Salazar.

"I knew you'd be here."

"Congratulations." His tone wasn't very inviting, but she took a seat next to him all the same.

"What happened?" He looked at her, his gaze not exactly cold but very scrutinizing.

"We had an argument. That's all."

"But it wasn't only an argument. We've all had arguments before -- this was different."

"I suppose. Does it really matter to you?"

"Of course it does."

He continued "I suppose Helga is off with Godric now?"

"Naturally," she said, but her voice had a strange quality in it that made him look at her again.

"Do they bother you?"

She sighed. "No, it's just that - I don't know." She gave herself a few minutes to collect her thoughts, and then continued.

"They're both so...moral, I suppose. Both of them have got this rigid code of what's right and what's wrong, and they place such high values on following that code." Her voice trailed off, and when it came back it was much softer. "I hardly ever think about what's the right thing to do. Is that...is that awful?" She hated sounding so naïve and lost, she, who was supposed to know everything.

Salazar smirked. "That question, my dear, shows just what the difference between me and you is."

This hardly answered her question, but for the moment she was content to simply sit there and gaze up at the stars.

She was leaning her head slightly on his shoulders now, and without thinking he picked up a strand of her hair to finger.

Her hair was brown, dark brown, and occasionally it darkened enough to be mistaken for black, but it never was as black as his.

His was an eternal sort of black, thin and dark and unforgivingly ebony. The two hair colors were touching now, but neither of them minded. It was a while before either of them spoke again, and when he did his words were unexpected.

"You shouldn't be here, you know. If you had any sense you'd be getting as far away as possible."

"I know." She said, but didn't move. He continued.

"I mean it. I'm corrupted. You're the only one that fully realizes it - Godric and Helga certainly don't, at least not yet. You should be far away by now. I'm corrupted."

She still didn't move. "We all have our flaws."

She was looking straight into him, and he was suddenly very aware of her eyes. He'd known that she'd had blue eyes, of course (and that Helga had hazel, and Godric had brown...) but he had never really noticed them that much. It wasn't so much that they were such an extraordinary shade of blue -- they weren't, and he could think of at least two other people with the same hue -- but more just the _way _she was looking at him.

And she continued to look at him that way until he looked at her like that too, and he continued fingering her hair and they continued sitting together in the night air.

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**Part Two**

It was summer. It was a hot, muggy day and the constant crackling of the air should have been a sign that big things were to happen soon.

Salazar Slytherin did not notice the heat or the humidity as he walked up the dirt road. He had a task to do, and his task made him oblivious to all around him.

He did notice, however, when he turned a corner and was faced with the sight of the castle in all its glory. The sight made him quicken his pace. He continued along the road, seeking out areas of shade. Not because he desired a relief from a heat, but because he found the darkness they offered comforting.

It wasn't long before Salazar reached the gates, which slid open at his touch. He slipped through, and continued up to the castle. He slipped through the front doors too, and gave his eyes a minute to adjust from the brightness outside.

Sunlight filtered through the windows, and from the enchanted ceiling above, but it was still considerably darker inside. It was summertime, and so the hall was empty and silent and utterly devoid of life. He preferred it this way.

Salazar paused for a moment to reflect on how his footsteps were the only ones that could be heard. They sounded very lonely, yet impressive in the solitude. He liked that.

Then he banished all thoughts from his mind except those related to his task, and focused only on what he had come here to do.

Godric was surprisingly easy to find. He was in one of the smaller rooms off of the great hall, placing broomsticks into a closet. In the back of his mind, Salazar had always had some vague idea of a grand duel betwixt the two of them, with swords flashing and blood flying. Something that was worthy of having tapestries made of, and having the story told time and time again.

However, it was all done rather quickly. One flick of a wand, pointed at a back, not even a speck of blood spilled on dark robes. This method seemed too dull, somehow, too clean and simple and effortless, and he resolved to do the next one differently.

He found her in her common room, reading a book and surrounded by yellow and black. Unlike Godric, she could see him when he came in, and he savored the expression on her face. He kept his promise and abandoned his wand this time. This too was done quickly, although it lasted longer than the first. Necks, after all, require at least a second to break.

There were roses in the room, pink ones, and even though the sight of such innocence and childishness sickened him, he left them where they were. They added a dark irony to the scene, and he greatly enjoyed such humor.

He left that room, leaving behind a blond mass of curls tainted with red, a body surrounded by flowers. He paused outside the next room, because he sensed someone within. He never would have gone in otherwise; it was simply a classroom, and anyway, he had already found all those he had come for.

She was sitting inside it, not really doing anything, just sitting there, just existing. She wasn't looking up, but he knew that she saw him because of the way her shoulders tensed when he came in.

Salazar walked a few steps closer, and then spoke her name. She looked up. Her hair was immaculate, her face calm, she was as perfect as ever. But he could tell that she had been crying.

She was the first to speak, her voice just as poised as her manner.

"You've come back."

It wasn't really a question, but he felt that he had to answer it. If not for her sake, then for his.

"Yes" He saw her eyes take in the wand clenched in his hands, the quickly drying blood on his robes, but she didn't react. It wasn't as if she hadn't known already.

A moment's more silence, and then Rowena spoke again, softly.

"Go ahead - you're only wasting time." The idea that she would be worrying about time in such a situation was almost enough to make him smile, if he hadn't already never wanted to smile again.

"No. I'm not going to. I don't care about you - no, actually. I do care. And that's the problem."

She looked up again. "Is that a problem?"

"It is for me." She accepted his answer, and he continued.

"You add complications that I'd rather do without, but then again, it's not really my choice, is it? None of this is. I suppose you should just consider yourself lucky."

"I do." She was looking at him again, looking straight into his eyes, and in the back of his memory he could recall those eyes looking at him like this before.

He didn't stay for much longer, but long enough to talk some more, although nothing they said after that was very important. Then he left, out through the Great Hall and across the lawn.

She sat for a little longer, then stood up and smoothed her robes and left the room. She didn't enter the other two rooms immediately, but she went into them eventually. Then she cleaned them up a bit, and she was sad, but she didn't weep. She wasn't shocked either, because there was not much that shocked her anymore.

Salazar opened one of the front gates, and slipped through quietly, just like he had come in. Like a ghost, or a wraith, because that was really all he was. He was just a ghost, slipping in and out of time unnoticed and unwanted, a wraith made of nothing solid. He was not terribly important, at least according to most. He knew this, and resigned himself to always being a ghost. But, he thought to himself often, even ghosts can leave their marks.

**A/N Reviews make me happy. Very happy. And trust me, you want to keep me happy. **


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